McGavick would amend US Constitution to ban gay marriage

Anybody who has a question about how Mike McGavick would vote on divisive social issues, take a gander at today’s Kitsap Sun:

He said he’d prefer that states handle the gay marriage issue, but if courts continue to require it be allowed in some places, he’d then vote for a constitutional amendment defining marriage.

Um… the states are handling the issue; all of the court decisions he’s referring to (like the one pending here in WA state) are state court decisions. So what he’s really saying is that if the state legislatures don’t outright ban gay marriage, and the state courts continue to uphold it, then he would vote for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

That’s right, Mike McGavick wants to amend the Constitution of the United States to actively deny rights to a class of citizens.

Just thought you’d all want to know.

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As opposed to the activist judge that decided 76% of the population in Georgia was wrong and he was right?

“With one stroke of the pen, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell defied the will of the overwhelming majority of people in his state, and concluded that their collective voice should not be recognized in the matter of marriage in the state of Georgia. He did so even though 76 percent of the voters in that state had spoken in one of the largest turnouts in state history.

“But now the liberal judges strike down those amendments and leave the states with no options. It is important to point out that in every state where such a poll has taken place that those voting in favor of strict marriage definition have ranged in margins of 60-80 percent. The poor voters in Massachusetts have been polled repeatedly and they register consistently in the 70 percent range in terms of strict marriage definition yet they never had the chance to vote at the ballot box on the issue. Instead, four rogue judges put on their robes of arrogant tyranny and thwarted the voice of the people. “

Ban away.

“Because the Democrats will in party unison vote to filibuster the bill, it is vital that the bill pass the cloture vote once it is called for. This will require 60 votes. Right now we are close to 54 in favor. “

@1 You are saying the same thing a McGavick — if the state process doesn’t give me what I want then we should overrule it with federal power. Judicial review by a state court is a state process. If Mc Gavick and you don’t want top respect that, then please don’t be hypocritical by saying that you are in favor of states’ rights. Thank you.

Ass… one of the points of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, is to protect individuals from tyranny of the majority. In this regard, gay marriage is exactly analogous to inter-racial marriages, legal bans of which were overwhelmingly supported by voters.

If an initiative banning inter-racial marriage were to be passed today, should the courts uphold it simply because the majority has spoken?

I call bullshit on your straw man arguement goldstein – people cannot control the color of their skin – it is an immutable trait. And even the civil rights advocates (the REAL ones) call bullshit on that arguement. Blacks were discriminated based on the color of their skin, homosexuals, when they are discrimitated against, are so because of their behavior… behavior that they choose and more often flaunt.

Whether or not homosexuals are so by an immutable trait is still up for question but what is NOT up for question is their ability (inability) to contol their behavior.

One of their behaviors, sex, is the antithesis of the heart (and purpose) of marriage. Society supports and has long supported the institution of marriage BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN because their union contributes to society in the simple fact that they produce children who in turn benefit society.

It doesn’t matter if 76% of people in Georgia are for something if it is unconstitutional. That is the reason we are such a great country, that we look out for minorities. At one time 76% or more of the voters in Georgia were for segregation, too, but that didn’t make it right.

I guess that conservative Republicans favor state’s rights only when it is the state that wants to DENY civil rights, as in Barry Goldwater’s opposition to ending discrimination by federal legislation, on state’s rights grounds, back in 1964. State’s rights are nothing when one or two states wants to GRANT a civil right, in which case a federal constitutional amendment becomes imperative to override the states.

It doesn’t matter if 76% of people in Georgia are for something if it is unconstitutional. That is the reason we are such a great country, that we look out for minorities. At one time 76% or more of the voters in Georgia were for segregation, too, but that didn’t make it right. -Commentby DT— 5/19/06@ 3:17 pm

The whole point, dimwit, is that at the moment homosexual marriage is NOT DEFINED IN THE CONSTITUTION. The whole point is that we are a REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. The whole point is that the MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WHOM ARE ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT are against homosexual marriage. The whole point is our founding documents lay out STATES RIGHTS TO BE SELF GOVERNING OF THEIR OWN CITIZENS and the citizens of Georgia, Massachusetts and every other state that has voted on homosexual marriage VOTED AGAINST IT.

You liberals are so damned FOR homomarriage, so damned sure it’s ‘right’, it’s nice, it’s best – then why are you so damned afraid to let your fellow citizens VOTE on it. Nevermind, we know the answer of the arrogant we-know-best-you-know-nothing liberals.

Now that Alaska’s US Senate candidate McGavick has outed himself as being a homophobe and willing to discriminate against gays, this will cinch Cantwell’s return to the Senate. Some on the extreme left are not happy with her but they are not going to let a jackbooted, Hitler-loving, pro-discrimination, big-oil bought and sold sellout like McGavick get that seat. Won’t happen. Dream on righties. You lose. You and all your closeted gay bashing pals like ex-spokane mayor Jim West will have to make themselves happy by beating up femmes at the bowling alley right after they ask them for a blowjob!

This is not about “right’s”, or “fair” or any of the other whines you libs trot out. This is about forcing acceptance of deviant BEHAVIOR.

You remember, 1987, Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill laid out the blueprint which you lemmings followed oh so well.

This article was a proposed blueprint by homosexual activists for transforming the social values of “straight” America. At the core of the program was a media campaign to change the way the average citizens viewed homosexuality by desensitizing them concerning homosexuals and homosexual rights.

We also have a Constitution to protect us from tyranny of the minority. I’m gay, and I want to see marriage legalized for gays, but I don’t support the argument that gays deserve a special class protection. And, I think Goldy is putting words in McGavick’s mouth in making the inference that McGavick wants a contitutional ban on gay marriage. McGavick might be saying that he’d like to see some consistency on this issue across all states. And I agree. The current climate where some states and cities are declaring gay marriage open creates a certain chaos. Some are moving to said cities or states to get married, only to then find out that a higher court has ruled that the marriage is illegal, etc. And there are ways besides a consitutional amendment for the federal government to exert pressure on states to be homogenous in their definition of marriage one way or the other. Marriage is too universal to have it be a state by state issue. Imagine two married gays driving across the country violating the law every few hours as the cross state lines.

And frankly, there are many ways around the marriage institution if one is simply trying to get the accompanying legal benefits.

I also believe that some have a genetic predisposition to homosexuality, however others have simply chosen homosexuality. Unlike race, one can choose to be gay. And thus a whole quandry of issues with defining a class based on selected behavior. Many gays even choose an outwardly heterosexual lifestyle for that exact reason.

To me, the issue seems to be much more about gay activism, and as I wrote above, I’m opposed to legally defining special class protections based on any trait, chosen or inate.

Not true. What we are saying is that consenting legal adults may enter into a mutual contract if they so choose to do so. That’s called smaller less intrusive government into our personal lives. And, isn’t that a core principle of conservatism?

“This is about forcing acceptance of deviant BEHAVIOR.”

Also, not true. Nobody is “forcing” you to accept anything. You do not have to have a homosexual marriage. Ever. In the past people would have said inter-racial marriage was a deviant BEHAVIOR between a black person and white person. Again, Liberals fought this discrimination and won. While it is true there are many people who still harbor these thoughts they are morally and ethically wrong. Furthermore, they don’t have a legal leg to stand on any more as they once did.

ASS: your arguments against gay marriage are so specious and easily refuted. It’s so easy to take your points and blow them out of the water one by one. I don’t have time right now so I’ll let someone else do it much as I’d like to make you look totally ridiculous.

You are right about one thing: most people oppose gay marriage because they are as ignorant, fearful and homophobic as you. I wish it wasn’t so but it is.

It is pure and simple a government entity. People may wish to exchange vows in a place of worship, they may even choose to include some religious ceremonies, but lock, stock and barrel, it’s a government institution ONLY.

Marriage is not a creation of the law. Marriage is a fundamental human institution that predates the law and the Constitution. At its heart, it is an anthropological and sociological reality, not a legal one. Laws relating to marriage merely recognize and regulate an institution that already exists.

If love and companionship were sufficient to define marriage, then there would be no reason to deny “marriage” to unions of a child and an adult, or an adult child and his or her aging parent, or to roommates who have no sexual relationship, or to groups rather than couples. Love and companionship are usually considered integral to marriage in our culture, but they are not sufficient to define it as an institution.

Anthropologist Kingsley Davis has said, “The unique trait of what is commonly called marriage is social recognition and approval … of a couple’s engaging in sexual intercourse and bearing and rearing children.” Marriage scholar Maggie Gallagher says that “marriage across societies is a public sexual union that creates kinship obligations and sharing of resources between men, women, and the children their sexual union may produce.”

Canadian scholar Margaret A. Somerville says, “Through marriage our society marks out the relationship of two people who will together transmit human life to the next generation and nurture and protect that life.”

Another Canadian scholar, Paul Nathanson (who is himself a homosexual), has said, “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm” that limits marriage to unions of men and women. He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”

There is no reason, though, to extend “marriage” to same-sex couples, which are of a structural type (two men or two women) that is incapable–ever, under any circumstances, regardless of age, health, or intent–of producing babies naturally. In fact, they are incapable of even engaging in the type of sexual act that results in natural reproduction. And it takes no invasion of privacy or drawing of arbitrary upper age boundaries to determine that.

Another way to view the relationship of marriage to reproduction is to turn the question around. Instead of asking whether actual reproduction is essential to marriage, ask this: If marriage never had anything to do with reproduction, would there be any reason for the government to be involved in regulating or rewarding it? Would we even tolerate the government intervening in such an intimate relationship, any more than if government defined the terms of who may be your “best friend?” The answer is undoubtedly “no”–which reinforces the conclusion that reproduction is a central (even if not obligatory) part of the social significance of marriage.

Indeed, the facts that a child cannot reproduce, that close relatives cannot reproduce without risk, and that it only takes one man and one woman to reproduce, are among the reasons why people are barred from marrying a child, a close blood relative, or a person who is already married. Concerns about reproduction are central to those restrictions on one’s choice of marriage partner–just as they are central to the restriction against “marrying” a person of the same sex.

However, while every individual person is free to get married, no person, whether heterosexual or homosexual, has ever had a legal right to marry simply any willing partner. Every person, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is subject to legal restrictions as to whom they may marry. To be specific, every person, regardless of sexual preference, is legally barred from marrying a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. There is no discrimination here, nor does such a policy deny anyone the “equal protection of the laws” (as guaranteed by the Constitution), since these restrictions apply equally to every individual.

Some people may wish to do away with one or more of these longstanding restrictions upon one’s choice of marital partner. However, the fact that a tiny but vocal minority of Americans desire to have someone of the same sex as a partner does not mean that they have a “right” to do so, any more than the desires of other tiny (but less vocal) minorities of Americans give them a “right” to choose a child, their own brother or sister, or a group of two or more as their marital partners.

Laws against interracial marriage, on the other hand, served only the purpose of preserving a social system of racial segregation. This was both an unworthy goal and one utterly irrelevant to the fundamental nature of marriage.

Allowing a black woman to marry a white man does not change the definition of marriage, which requires one man and one woman. Allowing two men or two women to marry would change that fundamental definition. Banning the “marriage” of same-sex couples is therefore essential to preserve the nature and purpose of marriage itself.

The legal and financial benefits of marriage are not an entitlement to be distributed equally to all (if they were, single people would have as much reason to consider them “discriminatory” as same-sex couples). Society grants benefits to marriage because marriage has benefits for society–including, but not limited to, the reproduction of the species in households with the optimal household structure (i.e., the presence of both a mother and a father).

Homosexual relationships, on the other hand, have no comparable benefit for society, and in fact impose substantial costs on society. The fact that AIDS is at least ten times more common among men who have sex with men than among the general population is but one example.

Proudass, your argument implies that if a child results from an affair, then their should be a polygamous marriage. It also implies that two people who have been ‘fixed’ should be prohibited from being married.

“There is no reason, though, to extend “marriage” to same-sex couples, which are of a structural type (two men or two women) that is incapable–ever, under any circumstances, regardless of age, health, or intent–of producing babies naturally.”

Gay people can’t adopt? Lesbians can’t be artificially impregnated. And, if it’s be cause it’s not natural, then what about straight couples who are incapable of having children. Should invetro fertilization be reason enough to ban their marriage?

Anyone believe that marriage is not wholesale government institution try this:

Go to your deacon, priest, Father, pastor, whatever, and ask for a divorce. After the “don’t get divorced speech” be persistent and say there’s no choice. I need a divorce. See if they grant your request. You’ll be told they do not have the power to grant a divorce.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A U.S. senate committee voted to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on to the full Senate Thursday, amid intense debate and flaring tempers, reported the AP yesterday. The panel decided in favor of the amendment in a 10-8 vote along party lines.

The measure would prevent states from recognizing same-sex marriages by amending the constitution to explicitly define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

“Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman,” the measure states. “Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”

The Senate will vote on the amendment the week of June 5. In order to achieve ratification, the amendment would need the support of two-thirds of Congress and the approval of 75% of the states.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Wayne Allard, told reporters he did not expect the amendment to pass the Senate but he wanted to keep the issue before the public, reported Reuters.

“If we quit bringing it up here and talking about it here, in effect we leave the decision-making process to the judicial side,” Sen. Allard said.

“The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Wayne Allard, told reporters he did not expect the amendment to pass the Senate but he wanted to keep the issue before the public,”

If that’s not the definition of a political stunt than nothing is.

Why on Earth would they be debating issues they know or expect to pass when US Soldiers are dying in the civil war of Iraq? While the Bush Republicans have squandered 3 TRILLION Dollars in 5 years. While the Bush Republicans destroyed FEMA. The list is toooooooo long, but you get the idea.

So a widow and a widower in their 60’s can’t get married, even though they love each other, desire companionship, and can’t reproduce another child?

If love and companionship were sufficient to define marriage, then there would be no reason to deny “marriage” to unions of a child and an adult, or an adult child and his or her aging parent, or to roommates who have no sexual relationship, or to groups rather than couples. Love and companionship are usually considered integral to marriage in our culture, but they are not sufficient to define it as an institution.

A couple that doesn’t want children when they marry might change their minds. Birth control might fail for a couple that uses it. A couple that appears to be infertile may get a surprise and conceive a child. The marital commitment may deter an older man from conceiving children with a younger woman outside of marriage. Even a very elderly couple is of the structural type (i.e., a man and a woman) that could theoretically produce children (or could have in the past). And the sexual union of all such couples is of the same type as that which reproduces the human race, even if it does not have that effect in particular cases.

Admittedly, society’s interest in marriages that do not produce children is less than its interest in marriages that result in the reproduction of the species. However, we still recognize childless marriages because it would be an invasion of a heterosexual couple’s privacy to require that they prove their intent or ability to bear children.

Gay people can’t adopt? Lesbians can’t be artificially impregnated.And, if it’s be cause it’s not natural, then what about straight couples who are incapable of having children. Should invetro fertilization be reason enough to ban their marriage?

The mere biological conception and birth of children are not sufficient to ensure the reproduction of a healthy, successful society. Paul Nathanson, the homosexual scholar cited above, says that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are:

· Foster the bonding between men and women

· Foster the birth and rearing of children

· Foster the bonding between men and children

· Foster some form of healthy masculine identity

· Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults

“To be specific, every person, regardless of sexual preference, is legally barred from marrying a child, a close blood relative, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. There is no discrimination here, nor does such a policy deny anyone the “equal protection of the laws” (as guaranteed by the Constitution), since these restrictions apply equally to every individual.”

OK here are the points: Children: Since marriage is a legally binding contract minors are prohibited from entering into contracts by law. The reasons are the ability of child to understand the legal and financial ramifications of their decisions are limited at best. Nor are they mature enough to handle the complex issues that sexual encounters. Bottom line: they are not capable of such mature decisions.

Close relatives: This explains the red states in the South. OK, OK, cheap shot I know, but that was a huge softball. Seriously, the physical and mental disorders that are passed on to another human being is morally and ethically wrong to do. That’s why that practice is banned.

Polygamy: Marriage, being a contract is between two people period. However, I’m for letting people practice polygamy if they choose to. However, current the contract law of marriage is between just two people.

That leaves homosexuality. The only thing you have are your religious beliefs, or what is social “norms.” But nothing like the understandable circumstances of a child, birth defects, or contract law. Pure and simple is discrimination and nothing else.

Gay, the new black in America. Except for JCH, just another group to hate for him.

You just don’t get it do you? This ISN’T about discrimination. It IS about MARRIAGE which just so happens to be a Christian sacrement. Gays can have a CIVIL UNION that imparts all the pros and con of marriage upon the couple. There are also other legal steps that, in effect, accomplish the same.

This way a church cannot get sued or suffer other legal and “adminstrative” actions for NOT performing a marriage to a gay couple.

Nobody is saying it, but this is really about a small group imposing their agenda on the majority. Furthermore, this issue gets traction because it also serves to attack the values of Christians a popular past time with some(most?)liberals.

Well, know that I think about it, it really IS about bias and bigotry….against the church.

The Anti-Gay Marriage Bill is a transparent attempt by the christianist right to jam thier “talibanesque” morality down our throats.

Bigotry, discrimination, religious intolerance, these are the admirable ideals espoused by LardAss and her ilk.

Real, true Americans…y’all are. Let’s just create the first class of citizens to be legally discriminated against in the 230 year history of this Republic, why don’t we. Let’s forever destroy the line between Church and State that has protected BOTH for 230 years. Hell let’s establish a State Religion while we’re at it.

I say we should all be DRUIDS.

So you’re a follower of follower of the guy who authored the “Sermon on the Mount”. The guy who said the greatest commandments were to love God with your whole heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. Tell me LarsAss do you do hateful things like this to yourself and your loved ones?

And tell me please, LardAss…who would Jesus discriminate against? Who would Jesus, Son Of God-Son of Man not call brother, or sister…and embrace?

The gay man? The gay woman? The hispanic? The Middle Easterner?

ME?

YOU?

You’re just another christianist who has a real perverted idea of the VERY simple Christ message.

You believe in the Christ? Then ACT like it. (You will know they are Christians by their LOVE…ever heard THAT?)

“Are you incapable of realizing there is more than one issue dividing, destroying affecting our country right now? Must every damned one of them be filtered through the hate-Bush lens?”

Gee, I thought I did exactly that, tied in multiple issues to this topic that have a common denominator, Bush Republicans are running the show and doing a very poor job in leading the country. That’s how I feel about it and about 70% of my fellow Americans.

Comeon, Goldy, don’t be distracted by the red herrings. Consider the following facts:

1. Rove was removed from his domestic policy portfolio to concentrate on keeping the Congress republican. Rove’s role Pared Seattle Times, April 19, 2006.

2. Rove’s strategy is to first recover the support of the Republican base for the election of Republican candidates in November. To do this he needs to distract them from the horrible job Republicans have been doing in governing the country, by making them MORE afraid of what would happen with the Democrats in charge. That way he can motivate the Republican base to turn out in large numbers to support a Republican candidate they may not necessarily like, simply because he isn’t a Democrat.

“Karl Rove, Bush’s top political adviser, and GOP leaders are well aware of the problem and planning a summer offensive to win back conservatives with a mix of policy fights and warnings of how a Democratic Congress would govern. The plan includes votes on tax cuts, a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage, new abortion restrictions and measures to restrain government spending.

4. Today the Senate Judiary Committee approved a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage, referring it to the floor of the Senate for debate. “Not all those who voted “yes” support the amendment. *Allan) Specter (Rep. PA & Committee Chair) said he is “totally opposed” to it but believed it deserved a debate in the Senate.” Same Sex Marriage Vote Ignites Tempers in Senate, Seattle Times, May 19, 2006.

5. Question: So why would the committee chair insist on a debate and vote by the whole Senate, if he said he didn’t agree with it? So they can get the Democrates who are running for re-election on record as opposing it, and then use that against them over the comming summer campaigns. They probably already have the television ads in production, and fliers ready to be mailed to the church-going base. They know exactly which Democrates are vulnerable on this issue, and they will target them.

So when we should be talking about what a bad job “Sheriff Dave” is doing by following the White House around like they have him by the nose, how ridiculous his “gang initiative” is, and how he hasn’t accomplished anything in the House, and how bad the Republican led Congress is in general, INSTEAD they just throw out the “Gay Marriage” issue. And just like when a burgler throws a chunk of steak to a guard dog, we go barking off after it (as expected), while the burgler goes after the family jewels.

ALL voters are not christian, yet Gay Marriage is not supported at the polls.

Hence the need for judges to rule thus JAMMING this down the throats of the majority.

Besides, if memory serves me correctly almost every time I read about a “civil union couple” (yes gay civil union IS legal in lot’s of places) they often, if not always refer to themselves as married. So who’s fooling who?

Here’s a big clue to some of you: Most people don’t give two shits about who is gay or not, but they do recognize marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Jack, why in the hell does your religion need the protection of government? Seems like a weak faith, to me. Do your people not really believe and are incapable of following the word of your god without jack-booted thugs standing on their neck?

I love guys like sixmillionwordsinfrontofASS. They get all hot and bothered about homosexuality when in reality it’s not a threat. Why do they do so? I’m a pretty liberal guy in a profession with a way-above-average number of gay people in it, and I’ve never entertained the idea of having sex with another man, let alone a relationship. Know why? I’m not JCH. (Ba-da-bing!) Sorry, I meant that my sexuality is in my genetic makeup and snuggling with guys just ain’t appealing, at all.

But I’m not so sure the line is so black and white for many people, and it scares them to death, as the clergy tell them they’re going to hell for every “brokeback” thought about their fellow flight-school washouts–plus, the clergy want to reserve all the same-sex action for themselves (zing! I’ll be here all week!).

Really: If homosexuality is a choice, so is heterosexuality. When did you make that choice, sixmillionwordsinfrontofASS? Could you reverse that choice tomorrow, if you wanted? I couldn’t. If you can’t either, your whole argument that it’s a choice is total hogwash. And if it’s not a choice, your argument itself falls to pieces.

That said, even if it was a choice, so what? We’re talking about consenting adults with perhaps a few virgin sons of right-wing commentators on the sidelines. Frankly, when you close your front door, you can do whatever you want in there with any other consenting adult.

“Paul Nathanson, the homosexual scholar cited above, says that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are:

· Foster the bonding between men and women

· Foster the birth and rearing of children

· Foster the bonding between men and children

· Foster some form of healthy masculine identity

· Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults

Commentby howcanyou be PROUDtobeanASS— 5/19/06@ 4:54 pm”

WOW! This is one of those posts that conservatives make that disproves their own argument. Do you realize this has ZERO to do with gay marriage? Did you give this even one second of critical thought?

3% of the US population is gay. Whether or not these people “marry” they will always be gay. And, if they are ALWAYS going to be gay, the are not going to reproduce children. If they are not ever going to reproduce children you’ve listed nothing but moot points.

In fact, since they are going to have a zero sum impact on the over burgeoning human population any way, what difference does it really make if they wed?

NONE! But thanks for making that post. I really appreciate you helping my argument.

Burton, “MARRIAGE which just so happens to be a Christian sacrement. . .” So what, it is also a muslim sacrament, a hindu sacrament, a wiccan sacrament, a buddist sacrament, etc. What makes the christian form so superior that we should only follow it?

I support most of what Ass has to say. So in clarification, I’m not for gay marriage, I’m for some sort of legal civil union. It would be nice to have a legal definition for my partner and I, even if largely symbolic. However, it’s quite clear that heterosexuality should and must be the norm for the preservation of humanity. I’m fine with that. As I said above, there’s probably a small percentage of any species that has a genetic homosexual inclination. It’s really a very small percentage, and I can say that from experience. Often I meet gays that seem to fit the culture, but who really don’t seem genetically gay. I’m not interested in those people and more than I suspect a hetersexual male might be interested in a tran Some of them have even told me it’s their choice.

But there is a very clear sense of activism in the gay community that I’m very much against. If you think it’s tough coming out of the closet as a gay, try coming out of the closet as a conservative gay. What I mean by special protection for gays is the activism that promotes things like hate crime legislation. A callous murder is a callous murder. It’s entirely wrong to attach special significance to the murder of a human, just because they are gay. In fact, it many ways, it dignifies the murderer in the eyes of racists to attach the special circumstance of sexual orientation or race to a murder. The same goes for special protections for discrimination in the workplace. Is it wrong to deny someone a job for no good reason? No. And it happens all the time. I’ve often skipped over a candidate just because I didn’t think there would be a good personality fit. That’s reason enough. Employment in this country is voluntary. Why should an employer who does not agree with my sexual orientation be forced to hire me?

Gay activism, like other forms of minority activism is wrong. It only serves to create more negativity towards minorities when there’s some kind of special treatment. And if there’s not enough support in our representative government for civil unions, then so be it.

A constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman offers the ultimate protection against the agenda of gay and lesbian activists such as Paula Ettelbrick, former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who unabashedly states: “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and … transforming the very fabric of society.” -Paula Ettelbrick, quoted in “Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” by William B. Rubenstein, Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law (New York: The New Press, 1993), pp. 398, 400.

Gay @ 63 So if the majority wish to – on the basis of status, not conduct – deny you employment and housing, you would say, “so be it”? I don’t think so…

For all of those conservatives who have ‘chosen’ heterosexuality (would have loved to have been a mouse in the corner on THAT day) and who love to blather on about selecting one’s race, with regards to civil rights – it should be remembered that children are seldom (if ever) discriminated against in their own families for their racial makeup – but often lose the same (as I have) for being gay.

If the central purpose of government is to promote the general welfare, then the state must promote always what is best for society’s health, security, and long-term viability. This requires the state to make prudential judgments about various segments of our population: Those under 16 may not drive. Those under 21 may not drink. You must possess a high-school diploma to join the military. Information about paroled child molesters must be made available so parents can protect their children.

Some label these prudential decisions “discrimination,” but discriminating in such matters promotes the general welfare. The unique affirmation of heterosexual marriage operates under the same principle. Traditional matrimony is the foundation of society, and society should neither encourage nor recognize anything pretending to approximate it. Again, the reason for this relates to marriage’s primary purpose: The spousal union produces families, and such families are the building blocks of society.

Granted, many marriages don’t produce children. Most soldiers don’t face combat and yet are still eligible for veterans’ benefits. But the state rewards each institution based on its ability to provide society with a valuable function. Governments favor historical marriage and seek to strengthen it in its policies because virtually everything that happens in society, for good or ill, can be traced back to families and family life.

The marriage revolution would not only undermine matrimony—and thus society—but it would effectively destroy it.

If there is a biological element to homosexuality, it does not change my view. You biologically predisposed to be an alcoholic, yet you resist. I may be hungry and and want to steal a loaf of bread to feed myself, yet that biological urge is no excuse to commit a crime. Our behavior is ours and ours alone to control.

People on your side of the debate are going to have to come up with an argument other than “your a bigoted homophobe.” You can’t win the debate by just dismissing my very strongly held beliefs with a wave of your hand while muttering “that’s just religious crap.”

I resent the notion that those of us who oppose homosexual marriage are evil, homophobic, bigots. Until the supporters of homosexual marriage, and some of the opponents, get past the insults, personal attacks, and perpetual indignation, this debate can’t be had. I thought the blogosphere was to provide a forum for rational debate.

So ass, does the biological element that makes you want to marry your sister make it hard to find girlfriends? And who gives a good golly fuck whether or not you like the personal attacks and insults you so richly deserve. You are among the flame throwers on the right and like most cowardly crybabies, you can’t stand it when we fight fire with fire. Even the name you use on this blog shows you’re not about being civil so go fuck yourself. Nobody here cares what you think anyway. Go to Steffy’s blog and post with the other log cabin republicans. All five of you can have a circle jerk.

71: My paying full taxes while being relegated to a demi-class citizenship does NOT promote the ‘general welfare’ in any way, shape, or form. It may promote yours, but not mine. My lavender dollars are printed with green ink; Full taxes? Full rights. Period.

Same-sex marriage is not the future. The set of ideas that lead a culture, a religion, a court to endorse same-sex marriage are simply not sustainable over the long haul. Europe, which gave us the idea of same-sex marriage, is a dying society, with birthrates 50 percent below replacement. Every mainstream Protestant sect that has endorsed sexual liberation (including homosexuality) is also dwindling away.

Cultures, communities, religions, sects and societies that lose the marriage idea die out. They are replaced by cultures, communities, sects and societies that prioritize, celebrate and embrace the idea of bringing men and women together to make the future happen. That’s what marriage means.

A couple that doesn’t want children when they marry might change their minds. Birth control might fail for a couple that uses it. A couple that appears to be infertile may get a surprise and conceive a child. The marital commitment may deter an older man from conceiving children with a younger woman outside of marriage. Even a very elderly couple is of the structural type (i.e., a man and a woman) that could theoretically produce children (or could have in the past). And the sexual union of all such couples is of the same type as that which reproduces the human race, even if it does not have that effect in particular cases.

Admittedly, society’s interest in marriages that do not produce children is less than its interest in marriages that result in the reproduction of the species. However, we still recognize childless marriages because it would be an invasion of a heterosexual couple’s privacy to require that they prove their intent or ability to bear children.

And the bottom line rugrat, is that evidently you DID spawn little rugrats somewhere along the line.

Wait, ASS, so this is a racist thing in the end? I mean, we have six billion people, more than enough to move even the heaviest piano, as the humorist wrote. “Societies” are fluid–they change over time. They have lifespans like all other living entities. What you’re worried about is that WASP society is dying, and with it the only vestige of pride you have, that you have less melanin in your skin than some other people? What’s the word for that, hmmm, of yeah: pathetic.

Hey, my condolences, but I don’t think a lot of the rest of us are worried.

You miserable prick, no where did I call anyone a “SECOND CLASS CITIZENS”.

The coupling of any two homosexuals may be many things – quite frankly I’m indifferent to them – but one thing that coupling will never be is a marriage; one thing that coupling will never produce is children. Don’t spew your bullshit about adoption or in vitro or turkey basters: your daughter and her friends 2 eggs ain’t gonna produce a child and your brother and his pals 2 sperm ain’t gonna produce a child. Adoption, in vitro and turkey-basters are little more than a zero sum game for society.

Hey proudass, in response to “Cultures, communities, religions, sects and societies that lose the marriage idea die out. ” Have you notice the wiccan religion which allows both polygamous and gay marriages has been doubling ever 18 months since the early nineties? Yes we need marriages, no we dont need to restrict it to one sects idea of what marriages are.

Here late — missed the action. Some of the best posts on the topic I have read in a while.

I am queer as can be, and knew it when I was six or so. I always knew I liked male classmates with an ardor not common. I also understood very early that was not exactly OK.

At the same time, I begin to see myself as special, not warped. The third eye type of sense, a unique world unknown to most. From that point it was easy.

All the arguments against gay marriage are completly bogus. It is not church related at all. Civil marriage.

Actually there are a host of churchs that will marry you today if you wish – more and more with time. No second class citizenz, that is the CIVIL issue.

Lots of gay folks have no interest in all the traditional marriage rah rah. BUT, they hate the righ wing bigots and homophobes and understand the fight for equal treatment.

It is so fuunny to read the NO QUEER marriage posts – just screw balls mostly. Fixated screwballs. Since we are a westerized culture – America will evently grant gay marriage, just way behind the curve.

Oh, those evil cretins in Canada, South Africa, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Great Britian, Denmark, Sweden — and more each day.

Get a clue all you fucking phobes. Get out of my bed and off my civil rights.

When California courts said yes to inter racial marriage, almost 80 per cent of the population were aghast. Today, the opposition of such would be considered utterly stupid. In fact, younger folks cannot even fathom why the oldies from the past were freaked by inter racial mating.

Gay Conservative, you have been brainwashed ……. the Gay activism you deplore is the reason you do not get beaten to a pulp anymore on the streets or can keep you house, which they sold to you without question —especially because you are fooling no body. I like gay conservatives, but I hate those who work agains their brother and sisters in the movement. I do no want to go to GOP meetings, you go. I will work the cililized people, you do the organizing among the politically deranged. Good luck, and do not go alone in the parking lot at the Republican convention late at night.

And watch the wrist and the walk and lisp and dress at all times …… remember, neutral finger nail polsih is considered queer.

Good discussion …… astuute post above ….. Mc Gavick just sealed his political doom…..voters are tired of the bashing…..with real problems to solve like their kids dying in war and deficits that taint the future of our econmy.

Rove will be pushed out of the closet one of these days ….. DC is the home of the deepest closets in the world …

Oh, those evil cretins in Canada, South Africa, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Great Britian, Denmark, Sweden — and more each day.

Right.

Take a look at their population statistics. Take a look at the fact they are offering MONEY for people to have babies. Take a look at the influx of radical Islam Take a look at their unsustainable economies, their inability to care for their aging polulations.

And upon further reflection on your immature rantings and glaring lack of anything substantive in your posts ever, rugrat, I sincerely doubt you have facial hair, let alone a wife of 4 years (I mean really, what good lefty woman would allow her fish/man to get away with calling her fellow feminists cunts, crones and twats) or a daughter. Is your goldfish homosexual too?

Russia has dramatically declining birthrate with NEGATIVE population growth and they are very homophobic and against gay marriage.

The declinig birthrates of some sectors of US society has nothing to do with homosexuality. It is primarily related to changes in patterns of education and work, and with people marrying later and with people realizing it is easier to finacially support a smaller number of children from youth through college.

#94 I dont know about South Africa (which is still recovering hopefully from being a quasi-slave based society), but the other countries on your list are not failing to take care of their elderly. You just made shit up. And no one is offering money to homosexuals to get married heterosexually and have babies. The problem, if there is one, is that heterosexuals are having fewer babies, not that more people are “turning” homosexual.

Your fear of immigrating brown people, because of employment opportunities that may have to do with lower birthrates, is a fear of a phenomena that has nothing to do with homosexual relationships.

Why am I even writing this? these people are so irrational. Why is it that the southern [former with the current pole numbers] red states have the highest divorce rate? Well, they are less educated, have less economic opportunity, and marry younger and are more religeously evangelical. Shit, how come you “defense of marriage” bigots aren’t advocating outlawing divorce?

In spite of the trolls this has been a thoughtful and interesting discussion. It IS a matter of time before some variant on legalized marriage for gays is approved in the U.S. The wingers can go with this gracefully or they can show themselves to by George Wallace-style bigots. Either way, they will lose.

P.S. “Conservative Gay”: I would think you were a lying troll, except I know that there are many self-hating gays out there like you and Mary Cheney. I am sorry you are not filled with hope and love for yourself and others, and are not burning with a fire to be free and equal to your fellow citizens. May you some day wake up and decide you are worth more than a door mat!

Wow, chetbob you’re quite the tolerant little lefty aren’t you? Just because there are homsexuals that disagree with the all knowing liberals they MUST be self-hating, is that it? Did I capture your tolerance about right? Now who’s the bigot chetbob??

It’s my personal preference that people be able to conduct their lives in any manner they please. Tolerance doesn’t require approval, only non-interference. Tolerance also doesn’t require recognition of what one might call himself. A man and a man might call themselves married, but I’m not obliged to recognize it as such anymore than my calling myself the King of Siam should require that you recognize me as such.

Americans have asked Congress to enact a constitutional amendment making it national law that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The perceived need for a constitutional amendment should be an embarrassment for all of us.

Most of the liberals invoking the inviolability of the Constitution in the debate against the FMA are the same liberals who generally invoke the doctrine of a “living Constitution,” which demands that we constantly “reinterpret” the document.

For example, in 2000 when asked what kind of judges he’d appoint, Al Gore replied, “I would look for justices of the Supreme Court who understand that our Constitution is a living and breathing document, that it was intended by our founders to be interpreted in the light of the constantly evolving experience of the American people.”

HUH??

Liberals believe that the Constitution shouldn’t be literally changed but they advocate a constantly changing meaning for what’s already in the document.

Look at it this way: If the U.S. Supreme Court came out with a decision requiring all states to recognize gay marriage, it’s unlikely that a single gay marriage proponent would complain. When the Supreme Court ruled that sodomy laws were unconstitutional, the Court read into the Constitution a meaning that hadn’t been there for two centuries – and the living Constitution crowd cheered. How is that any less “tinkering” with the Constitution than writing down an amendment?

Not only are the “living” constitutionalists fickle about their love for the American charter, they’re deeply skeptical about democracy itself. Why is it OK for unaccountable, unelected judges to willy-nilly say the Constitution says 2 plus 2 equals 5, but it’s somehow tyrannical for the House, the Senate and 50 states to debate an amendment with wall-to-wall media coverage? Why are big-D Democrats so terrified of small-d democracy?

Anyone who actively supports other people to discriminate against themself and people like themself doesn’t like their real self very much, and its psychologically sick for a gay person to join with others to discriminate against gays by giving them fewer rights. Something like that Stockholm syndrome.

No, I am not tolerant of people who advocate laws to take away my gay neighbors’ kids if the one “birth parent” dies. No, I’m not tolerant of people don’t want my gay neighbors to be able to visit each other in the hospital or form a relationship that gives them rights to make decisions for each other if one of them is incapacitated. No, I’m not tolerant of people who want to gain political power and make discriminatory laws against fellow citizens because they think Jesus or Allah wants them to. I’m not tolerant of people who want to come into my state and my neighborhood and into our bedrooms and tell us who we can love and when and how to have sex!

And this whole GOP push has backfired. The opposition to gay unions has fallen 20 points since 2000 because more and more citizens of the US who love the US, and the good in its laws and traditions, can see the hate and political degeneracy in the push for these discriminatory laws at this time.

You’re just plain intolerant chetbob, no question. Really, it’s so damned evident, you no longer need to point it out.

The old ‘Good for me but not for thee’ brand of liberal tolerance.

And tell us intolerantchetbob, where did anyone “advocate laws to take away my gay neighbors’ kids if the one “birth parent” dies” or “people don’t want my gay neighbors to be able to visit each other in the hospital or form a relationship that gives them rights to make decisions for each other if one of them is incapacitated.”?

NOWHERE.

But hey, intolerant chetbob, lets talk abouot the lesbian that has NO RELATION to the child here in Seattle, that never bothereed to adopt her and after she dumped her lesbian lover, the ex-lover birth mom married thebirth dad and now the dumping no relation lesbain thinks she gets rights to say how the child she never adopted should be raised.

You’re just plain intolerant chetbob, no question. Really, it’s so damned evident, you no longer need to point it out.

The old ‘Good for me but not for thee’ brand of liberal tolerance.

And tell us intolerantchetbob, where did anyone “advocate laws to take away my gay neighbors’ kids if the one “birth parent” dies” or “people don’t want my gay neighbors to be able to visit each other in the hospital or form a relationship that gives them rights to make decisions for each other if one of them is incapacitated.”?

NOWHERE.

But hey, intolerant chetbob, lets talk abouot the lesbian that has NO RELATION to the child here in Seattle, that never bothereed to adopt her and after she dumped her lesbian lover, the ex-lover birth mom married thebirth dad and now the dumping no relation lesbain thinks she gets rights to say how the child she never adopted should be raised.

Uh, proud Ass: Virginia just passed a law barring people from having contracts that give marriage-like rights. Give me a break. This is exactly what all these current anti-gay initiatives are a focussed on. They don’t just want to bar “marriage” they want to stop gays from entering into contracts that provide rights that are analogous to rights given by law without additional contracting through the marriage relationship. In Ohio, this backfired a bit because they have discovered that the anti-gay law barring protection of rights analogous to marriage ended up interfering with domestic violence laws aimed at non-married couples. People like you want to bring the worst of the South to Washington. I say get your puffy James Dobson Washington DC hands out of our houses and our families.

Just say it, I hate you, I am scared of you, I cling to my bigotry, and I am your enemy to my grave.

So what is new? I still want to get married civily if I choose, not in your redneck church, as a full citizen of the State of Washington……and on down the line.

Simple, elegant, logical, and will not imapact your life one whit…….. unless you write hate fund raising mailers for the crazies to raise the millions from the ignorant.

We really care very little about people like you, asuming there will always be some around….. but be sure our movement will change the future for the next generations of GLBT folks.

FOR THE HIGHY NON INFORMED — France has been subsidizing childredn as national policy since the First World War, yes way back then, as they lost 40 percent of the breeder age males and the birth rate and population fell drasticly … It took France 40 years to get back to the prewar, WW I, population.

Homos had no impact on French population problems – guess who, WAR.

Italy is interesting. Modern italian women decided in the last 15 years that they did not need to keep birthing 5-6 babies. Called the modern world.

And all those countries in Europe live longer than Americans….. huff and huff you silly right wingers. No state paid health care, you die early. Goodbye……some strange logic should say, that is what you deserve.

P.P.S. Your pew poll hits the exact point I am trying to make. The oppose group has dropped from over 69% to 51% during the Bush administration. It gives me hope for this country in this dark time that fewer people support your hate mongering views the more they find out about gays and challenge their own biases. They see gays in their work places and gay parents at their schools and gay daughters of vice presidents and they say, “What the hell? What was the problem that bothered me so much? I just cant see it anymore? What they hell do I care as long as they pay their taxes and support the school bond referendum. And their kids are team players on the Little League team.”

Face it folks: ‘howcanyou be PROUDtobeanASS[sic] is a genuinely frightened little man. Afraid of the coming changes to the status quo. Fearful that changes “revolution” in marriage – despite, in the West, of the myriad changes in marriage by Christendom over the centuries – will result in its destruction. And, yes, he fears homosexuals when he conflates them with negatives like alcoholism and theft. And while using schoolyard behavior with my posts, bemoans the lack of civility in discussions. See posts 68,71,73… Shall we leave Malvolio in his cell now and stop poking him with sharp sticks? We’re only scaring him more.

I have nothing to be frightened of, especially a moral relativist liberal who can’t make up his mind from day today of something is right, wrong, good or bad.

I have no problem saying what I believe is good/bad. I have no situational ethics. I don’t believe the Constitution is good when it suits my purposes and “living” when it doesn’t. I believe in the American people and I believe you are afraid to believe in them which is the exact reason you don’t want our representative form of government to put an amendment to the people. You are too cowardly to trust your fellow citizens. You ignore the will of the people in 13 states that already made clear what they want. You want the minority to whine and throw an temper tantrum to get what you want, not because it’s good, noble or benefits society, but simply for your selfish reasons.

Please, please, please make this an election year issue. Let’s see just exactly how the American people judge this idea.

Oh you have a lovely way of tolerance.. anyone that pisses on your holy grail of homosexuality and supports the definition of marriage is afraid; anyone who compares BEHAVIORAL CHOICES is a homophobe; anyone who disagrees with an oh-so-tolerant liberal is uncivil.

Pot:kettle.

But please, shout it from the roof tops. Middle America wants to hear you.

You’re frightened because you instinctually react before thought; your world is self-defined as binary by nature (an AC/DC existence) – whereas the universe (and humankind) is often abstract by definition. Don’t be afraid. Marriage, even marriage as you worry over it, shall soar, strengthen, abide. Don’t let your fear of love couch and pinch your soul.

I guess we found the issue that SixmillionwordsinfrontofASS really gets off on. All we need now is a blog post by Goldy about affirmative action (that will give Herman an embolism), welfare (that will cause Mark the Reddick to explode) and how being a virgin when you marry is likely to lead to dissatisfaction and divorce (which will cause puddybud to have an infarct while he’s polishing his knob thinking of comely, comely virgins).

Here’s the REAL reason ASS is upset: Marriage as currently defined is one of the few little perks left to his “kind.” They took away his “whites only” stuff, women now are more often found outside the home than within, etc., etc. Let the gays get married and what’s next? Puddybud’s sons balls-deep in a cheerleader?

And ASS, answer the question about divorce. If marriage is so sacred, divorce and adultery are clearly bigger crimes than gays getting married. Right? If not, why not? If so, that sounds awfully much like you’d be right at home with radical muslims. Are you yourself divorced, ASS? Or even married?

Ass and that ilk: So let me get this straight (pun intended)? If there isn’t a law that bans gay marriage, then there is no longer an excuse for you not turning gay? If gay marriage is banned,will you then be protected from having to be your true selves because it will be illegal? I don’t think so. So what are you afraid of? How will gay marriage hurt you? Declining population? Please! I don’t think we have a problem of declining population. Maybe it’s this: if the 3% of the population that is homosexual is allowed to marry, the race will fail and society will collapse? Is that it. Wow, the gays have lots of power. Also, answer this: Why is it that those against gay marriage state (as one of their points of “reason”) that gay marriage will harm children and society, yet you don’t see these same people screaming about abusive, alcoholic parents? If you want to ban gay marriage, how about also banning marriage between alcoholics? Or ban anyone who is alcoholic from marrying at all? Are physical and mental abuse not deviant enough behavior for you? Again, what are you afraid of? Or is it just that you’re republican and you need to make everybody afraid of something so they’ll do what you want?

Thank you Goldy for noticing this statement by McGavick. The guy is defining himself as a typical pandering hack who plays only to the religious nutcase wing of the GOP base – which happens to control the party and is the prime reason why it is extremely rare for the GOP to win statewide races in Washington. McGavick doesn’t have a chance.

Have I missed something? No one’s forcing churches to marry gays. If your church doesn’t want to, it doesn’t have to! My husband and I were married specifically because we wanted someone within the married community to speak for gay rights. My marriage isn’t threatened by gay people (and if yours is, you may need a little more help than any amendment can offer). The last time I checked, the sorry state of marriage these days isn’t attributable to anyone but straight people who are divorcing left and right. It’s not exactly difficult to get married these days: walk into the county courthouse, pay a fee, fill out a license, find a “minister,” and voila. I was really surprised at how easy it was, actually (just did this last year). Will some gay people divorce, too? Of course. No one is holding them up on a pedestal…but I have friends who’ve been together for over 20 years, and it’s just disgusting to me that they aren’t allowed to be married like anyone else.

As a former medieval studies student, by the way, I should note that marriage primarily was a way to transfer land ownership. Having kids was only useful because it solidified your family’s claim to property in the future.

BTW, proudtobeawhatever: “You want the minority to whine and throw an temper tantrum to get what you want, not because it’s good, noble or benefits society, but simply for your selfish reasons.” Gee, like the 29% of people who still support Bush are doing now?

Oops, just realized I implied that the only reason we got married was to support gay rights — what I meant to say was that *one* of the things which made us decide to marry instead of cohabit was the fact that we wanted more liberal married people…

Now Tim Eyman’s turned to the evangelicals (I mean, professional hate-mongers) for help with his attempt to repeal the gay rights law:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....man20.html I am so sick and fucking tired of the god damned church trying to tell us all what to do and how we should live our lives. To all you religious extremists out there: stay the hell out of MY government

“You want the minority to whine and throw an temper tantrum to get what you want, not because it’s good, noble or benefits society, but simply for your selfish reasons.”Gee, like the 29% of people who still support Bush are doing now? -Commentby LibGrrl— 5/20/06@ 10:04 am

PAY ATTENTION LITTLE GIRL: THE ONLY NUMBER THAT MATTERED REGARDING BUSH IS THE NUMBER THAT ELECTED HIM.

If marriage is so sacred, divorce and adultery are clearly bigger crimes than gays getting married. Right? If not, why not? If so, that sounds awfully much like you’d be right at home with radical muslims. -Commentby Anonymous— 5/20/06@ 2:39 am

This is too bad, because the argument is a meaningless non sequitur.

First, while divorce ends a given marriage, it does not threaten marriage as an institution. Of course, many marriages fail and end in divorce — while some other marriages fail and do not end in divorce — but why does this threaten marriage as an institution?

To understand the foolishness of the argument “divorce threatens marriage,” let’s apply this principle to other areas of life. Let’s begin with parenthood. It is undeniable that vast numbers of people fail — and have always failed — as parents.

Yet, no one argues that the many parents who fail to raise good children threaten the institution of parenthood. Why, then, do marriages that fail threaten the institution of marriage?

Likewise, few people are calling for the redefinition of parenthood because parents so often fail to raise good children. Why, then, redefine marriage because many marriages fail?

There is a second reason the divorce-rate-threatens-marriage argument is disingenuous: If gays marry, they will divorce at least as often as heterosexuals do. That is why the divorce issue is entirely unrelated to the question of whether we should redefine marriage. The only reason the argument is even offered is because gullible people will buy it. The gullible include well-intentioned centrist Americans who think, “Hey, that’s a good point. Straights sure haven’t done such a great job with marriage; why not let gays have a crack at it?”

A third flaw in the argument is that it presupposes that every divorce constitutes a failure of a couple’s marriage. Sometimes this is true; sometimes it is not. I know a couple married for 30 years who made a beautiful home for their three now-married children. The couple divorced last year because they had both concluded that they had drifted too far apart to continue living together in any meaningful way (one aspect of the drift was one partner’s increasing devotion to religion and the other’s decreasing interest in it).

Who has the hubris to call their marriage a failure? Their children surely don’t think their parents’ marriage was a failure. It produced three wonderful married adults, and it provided them a beautiful and loving home in which to grow up. One can only wish all marriages so “failed.”

High rates of divorce and illegitimacy have eroded marriage norms and created millions of fatherless children, whole neighborhoods where lifelong marriage is no longer customary, driving up poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, welfare dependency, drug abuse, and mental and physical health problems. And yet, amid the broader negative trends, recent signs point to a modest but significant recovery.

Divorce rates appear to have declined a little from historic highs; illegitimacy rates, after doubling every decade from 1960 to 1990, appear to have leveled off, albeit at a high level (33 percent of American births are to unmarried women); teen pregnancy and sexual activity are down; the proportion of homemaking mothers is up; marital fertility appears to be on the rise. Research suggests that married adults are more committed to marital permanence than they were twenty years ago. A new generation of children of divorce appears on the brink of making a commitment to lifelong marriage. In 1977, 55 percent of American teenagers thought a divorce should be harder to get; in 2001, 75 percent did.

The scholarly consensus on the importance of marriage has broadened and deepened; it is now the conventional wisdom among child welfare organizations. As a Child Trends research brief summed up: “Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes. . . . There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.”

Relationship duration: While a high percentage of married couples remain married for up to 20 years or longer, with many remaining wedded for life, the vast majority of homosexual relationships are short-lived and transitory. This has nothing to do with alleged “societal oppression.” A study in the Netherlands, a gay-tolerant nation that has legalized homosexual marriage, found the average duration of a homosexual relationship to be one and a half years. (Maria Xiridou, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17 (2003): 1031.)

Monogamy versus promiscuity: Studies indicate that while three-quarters or more of married couples remain faithful to each other, homosexual couples typically engage in a shocking degree of promiscuity. The same Dutch study found that “committed” homosexual couples have an average of eight sexual partners (outside of the relationship) per year.

Intimate partner violence: as per the same study, homosexual and lesbian couples experience by far the highest levels of intimate partner violence compared with married couples as well as cohabiting heterosexual couples. Lesbians, for example, suffer a much higher level of violence than do married women.

Ah, yes. The ad hominem argument. This argument amounts to verbal terrorism. The implication is that only evil or sick people can possibly disagree with any claim made by gay people. (Never mind that not even all gay people are in favor of gay marriage.)

It is easy to trivialize arguments by attacking the personal integrity of those who make them. That way, you need not deal with the argument itself.

In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peopleâ€¦.

â€œThis vote is an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard,â€ said Scott Long, director of the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. â€œIt is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic.â€ – Human Rights Watch

So – after calling homosexual behavior ‘deviant’ (sez who? yet another example of your adherence to binary thinking) in post #13, you stentorianly declaim Government’s purpose as the ‘general welfare’ in post #71.

The efforts in the Senate and the action taken at the UN, not to mention the people’s legislature of Virginia, do precious little to further my general welfare. You’ll forgive me if I protect myself from my own government and fight back. Once I have equity in legal propinquity – and all the rights (visitation, property, inheritance) that flow in response – we’ll talk. Until that time, you have more; I have less. How’s that for AC/DC? More rights, more freedoms. I pay just as much as you do in taxes, (probably more) and deserve the same societal accesses you have. Until then, I’m a demi-citizen, whether you like the phrase or not…

Proud @ 33: “THE ONLY NUMBER THAT MATTERED REGARDING BUSH IS THE NUMBER THAT ELECTED HIM.”

Have you forgotten that the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away? Those who are graceful in victory will more easily weather any eventual defeats.

You cite a number of studies. I’m not familiar enough with the literature in that area to offer specific comments, but I am skeptical about the lopsidedness of the conclusions. So if I further investigated, the first thing I would look at is where these studies were published, were they peer reviewed, and is there controversy about their methodology and logic. Perhaps most importantly, have other credible studies come to similar conclusions?

In the meantime, all I can offer is a hypothesis: That you have cherry picked the research in pursuit of a pre-established political goal: To attack gay rights.

I don’t consider you “sick or evil” to be against gay rights — at least if you are making your arguments in good faith rather than knowingly distorting scientific findings.

It could well be that this ultimately comes down to a basic disagreement over political values. I happen to believe that pluralism is the single greatest strength of the American constitutional order — particularly in the 21st Century. Pluralism requires protecting the rights of minorities even when you may disagree with them in some fashion.

I would also suggest that this fixation on “protecting the sanctity” of heterosexual marriage isn’t really about that per se. That’s merely the presenting symptom of a deeper anxiety, which I would speculate is the accelerating rate of change sweeping across American society. An understandable reaction to this change is to seek to roll back the clock to simpler and more familiar times.

The key question thus becomes: Is it possible to go back? I suspect not. Pandora has escaped from the box.

I’m not against gay anything. I am most definitely against redefining marriage and protecting what makes a society work, grow and prosper: children and the structire that has been proven to be the best for them to thrive. Homosexual couples, by the very nature of their homosexuality, fail miserably in that regard.

I’m not against gay anything. I am most definitely against redefining marriage and protecting what makes a society work, grow and prosper: children and the structire that has been proven to be the best for them to thrive. Homosexual couples, by the very nature of their homosexuality, fail miserably in that regard.

Commentby howcanyou be PROUDtobeanASS— 5/20/06@ 1:54 pm”

You don’t have a lot of faith in the strength of your institution if the very small percentage of the 3% of the US population that declare themselves to be “gay” (e.i. that percentasge theat actually WANTS to marry) can “endanger” your precious “institution of man/ woman marriage”.

You cite a number of studies. I’m not familiar enough with the literature in that area to offer specific comments, but I am skeptical about the lopsidedness of the conclusions. -Commentby Green Thumb— 5/20/06@ 1:44 pm

11. Katherine K. Young and Paul Nathanson, “Questioning Some of the Claims for Gay Marriage,” presentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Ottawa, 20 February 2003.

13. Suzanne G. Frayser, Varieties of Sexual Experience: An Anthropological Perspective on Human Sexuality (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1985). According to Frayser, “rules are part of the definition of marriage in the sense that marriage is an intrinsically human social relationship. Humans partially organize their lives in conformity with the rules they have created” (248).

14. “Every culture of the world recognizes some form of the institution of marriage….” (Edith Turner and Pamela R. Frese, “Marriage,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, vol. 9 [New York: Macmillan, 1987] 218).

15. All world religions link marriage with progeny. The Islamic view, for instance, is that “[t]o bring forth a child is a four-faceted intimacy which is the original reason for encouraging it even after being safe-guarded against excessive desire, [because] no one wants to meet God as a celibate. The first is to conform to the love of God by seeking to produce the child in order to perpetuate mankind” (Madelain Farah, Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: A Translation of al-Ghazali’s Book on the Etiquette of Marriage from the Ihya’ (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1984) 11). According to an ancient Indian source, “the wife is indeed half of oneself; therefore as long as a man does not secure a wife so long he does not beget a son and so he is till then not complete [or whole]” (Satapatha Brahmana V.2.1.10; cited in Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmasastra: Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law, Vol. II. [Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1974] note 35, 429).

16. See Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (Albany: State University of new York Press, 2001).

18. David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Must Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995) and David Popenoe, Life without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (New York: Martin Kessler Books, 1996). Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher write that the children of two-parent families are better off in many ways than those of single parents (The Case for Marriage [New York: Doubleday, 2000]). There is evidence that the children of biological parents, moreover, are generally even better off than those of social parents. Browning notes that “[b]y the mid-1990s, reports by demographers … showed that children in the U.S. not living with both biological parents were on average two to three times more likely to have difficulties in school, in finding employment, and in successfully forming families themselves. Income lessens these consequences, but only by 50 percent” (Browning 17-18). For the importance of biological parents, including fathers, see Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing up with a Single Parent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994). Their work suggests that the formation of identity, not only economics and family stability, is a key factor in socialization.

This brings up something that has not yet been explored adequately by social scientists, something that is associated specifically with fathers (or mothers). At some level, identity always involves bodies. Being male (or female), in other words, parental bodies are important rather than peripheral in the development of children. We say this for two reasons. First, the formation of personal identity involves learning how to deal with the different physiological experiences of boys and girls. Second, the formation of healthy heterosexuality involves not only the transmission of culture from one generation to another but also the experiential lessons learned by watching parental bonding in spite of sexual differences.

19. According to Don Browning, ” [T]he most interesting base reality of these trends is the increasing distance, if not separation, of fathers from their children. Divorce, non-marital birth, and teen pregnancies not only correlate with and accentuate poverty, they correlate with a weaker if not completely absent relation with fathers. This means a loss of the financial contributions of the father. It also means a loss of other unique qualities such as conscience formation, the loss of mediation to offspring of the father’s ‘social capital’ (the resources of his extended family, his friends, his other social contacts), a decline of trust in the reliability of the world, and even a loss of faith in the dependability of the mother herself” (Marriage and Modernization: How Globalization Threatens Marriage and What to Do about It [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003]: 18; his emphasis).

20. To reproduce itself, a population must have a total fertility rate of 2.1. No developed Western country except the United States is currently reproducing itself; these countries have both declining birth rates and declining death rates. The Canadian rate is 1.7; the American rate is 2.1, but that is due mainly to massive immigration and not to the general pattern of educated couples having fewer children (“Total Fertility Rates by Country — North America,” [dated] 4 May 2003, Overpopulation.com [visited] 4 May 2003, http://www.overpopulation.com/.....erica.html). The rate for developed countries in general is 1.6 — down from 1.9 in 1990 (“Total Fertility Rates,” [dated] 4 May 2003, Overpopulation.com) http://www.overpopulation.com/.....lity_rate/).

The most obvious example of this would be Quebec, which is one reason Premier Bernard Landry has offered extra financial benefits to those who have children (thus infuriating feminists, who believe for some reason that this degrades women).

21. For a brilliant expose of the underlying premise of what we call “ideological feminism,” see Daphne Patai, Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). Among those who exemplify this mentality is Catharine A. MacKinnon, the chief architect in both the United States and Canada of changes to the laws governing pornography and sexual harassment. According to MacKinnon and her pal Andrea Dworkin, all sexual relations between men and women, including those initiated by and enjoyed by women, amount to rape. Why? Because, MacKinnon points out, women in patriarchal societies are incapable of giving their assent to sexual relations with men.

22. William N. Eskridge, The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: From Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1996); see also his affidavit for Halpern et al. v. Canada (A.G.) et al. sworn on 14 November 2000, court file 684/00. For the opposing argument, see the affidavit for the same case along with Peter Lubin and Dwight Duncan, “Follow the Footnote; or, The Advocate as Historian of Same-Sex Marriage,” Catholic University Law Review 47 (1998): 1271-1325.

24. According to one online source, the Canadian divorce rate was 45% in 1996; the American rate that year was 49% (“World Divorce Statistics,” [undated], Divorce Magazine, [visited] 3 May 2003, http://www.divorcemag.com/stat.....orld.shtml).

For the suicide rates of men and women, see 2001 Annual Report (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2002) 46; see also Elizabeth Thompson, “Quebec Leads Provinces in Suicides: Rate among Our Men Is More Than Triple That of Quebec’s Women, Study Finds,” Montreal Gazette, 18 September 2002: A-14. For the school dropout rates of men and women, see “Labour Force Statistics” [undated], B.C. Stats [visited] 3 October 2002, http://http://www.google.ca/search?q=.....bs/lfs/lfs

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, The Divorce Culture (New York: Knopf; Random House, 1997). Some social and political experiments, of course, are successful. Representative democracy is surely the most obvious example. There were those who warned that the American experiment would never work, for instance, or felt vindicated when the Civil War seemed to be ending it. Though flawed, nonetheless, American democracy has endured. So it will not do for us to make glib pronouncements about this new experiment. But the analogy is somewhat superficial. Even though representative democracy was a novum in the eighteenth century, democracy itself was not. It had been tried, albeit on a limited basis, in ancient Greece. Many small-scale societies, moreover, have tried informal versions of it. But gay marriage and its implications for both family and society, as we have observed, really would be unprecedented. In theory, it could work. In theory, after all, almost anything could work.

You don’t have a lot of faith in the strength of your institution if the very small percentage of the 3% of the US population that declare themselves to be “gay” (e.i. that percentasge theat actually WANTS to marry) can “endanger” your precious “institution of man/ woman marriage”. -Commentby rujax206— 5/20/06@ 2:19 pm

Nice try rugrat. This from a boy that has no faith in the American people and hence whines that he doesn’t want their voice even heard as to whether we should have a “marriage = 1 man + 1 woman amendment”.

Come on rugrat, admit what we all know (and you so regularly prove) to be true: you distrust and hate your fellow citizens because in your short, miserable little life they have repeatedly ignored your culturally debasing agenda, scorned your socialist politics and voted against your politicians.

Proud, I’ve done a quick scan of your lit search. Most of it seems to revolve around studies of divorce. I don’t question that this phenomenon is problematic (although there is some legitimate debate on that score). Where I am more skeptical is making the leap to arguing that homosexual couples make inferior families (most notably, in raising healthy children).

For example, I’m leary of the article, “Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk,” because it is published by the Family Research Council. That’s hardly an “objective” source of research.

You clearly have a broader agenda than merely attacking gay rights, e.g., the reference to “ideological feminism.” That’s a whole discussion in and of itself — and from what I know would seem to only partially overlap with the issue of gay marriage.

Finally, laundry lists of citations does not a scholarly discussion make. It’s much better to summarize a few key articles that get to the heart of your argument. Let’s be real: This isn’t a graduate seminar; I don’t have time to go look up these sources, particularly before this thread floats into obscurity.

Joshua Livestro is a columnist with Dutch political magazine Vrij Nederland and the Benelux edition of Reader’s Digest

The first legal gay wedding ceremonies in the Netherlands took place on April 1, 2001. By November 2002, however, gay-marriage enthusiasts were forced to admit that interest in this new institution was fading. Since April 2001, each quarter has brought a further decline in the number of gay marriages, falling from 2,500 in 2001 to less than 1,500 last year. As of April 2004, only 5,916 of Holland’s roughly 55,000 gay couples had tied the knot. The floodgates had been forced open by gay-marriage activists, but through them came just a trickle of mainly lesbian couples (lesbians make up only 20 percent of the homosexual community in the Netherlands, but they now make up more than half of all married homosexual couples).

It seems that so far 90 percent of Dutch homosexual couples have declined the historic opportunity to get married. This already far-from-impressive statistic gets even worse when we take into account the fact that cohabiting gays and lesbians are actually just a small minority within the larger homosexual community. Gay organizations’ own figures, which put the size of the gay community in Holland at around 1.5 million (almost 10 percent of the total Dutch population of 16 million), seem a wild exaggeration. But if accurate these figures would give the impression that with only a little bit more than one-third of 1 percent of Dutch gays and lesbians actually married, interest in marriage among homosexuals is virtually nonexistent.

A government-sponsored study on sexuality in the Netherlands among people ages 18 and older came up with a more realistic figure of 350,000 gays and lesbians. Even on this cautious estimate, however, married gays and lesbians comprise no more than 3.3 percent of the total number of adult homosexuals. By comparison, by the end of 2003, heterosexual married people made up 60 percent of the total Dutch population ages 18 and older (and 75 percent if the categories of widowed and divorced are included).

Andrew Sullivan in his so-called conservative case for gay marriage claims that allowing gays to marry would not only not undermine marriage, it would also help strengthen an institution under threat of countercultural erosion. It would do so, he says, not just by boosting marriage statistics, but more important by presenting marriage as something to be desired, a special status worth fighting for.

Unfortunately for Sullivan (and the Netherlands), however, the Dutch experience has shown the exact opposite of what he predicts. By lobbying so intensively for a change in the law, the gay-marriage campaign did contribute to a change in people’s attitude toward marriage. And there is little doubt that it has been a change for the worse.

Since the start of the Dutch gay-marriage debate — in which gay-marriage activists successfully made the case for separating civil marriage from the legal rights and duties involved with the raising of children — the percentage of Dutch babies born out of wedlock has skyrocketed. As Stanley Kurtz has also pointed out, in the 15 years since the beginning of the long march toward gay marriage, the illegitimacy rate in the Netherlands has risen from 11 percent (1989) to over 31 percent (2003).

As it turns out, 1989 — the year in which gay-marriage campaigners filed their first legal challenge to the existing marriage laws — is something of a tipping point in marriage statistics as well. Before that year, both the absolute number of marriages and the marriage rate (number of marriages per 1,000 people) were on an upward trend. Since 1989, however, that upward trend has turned into a downward slope, from more than 95,000 new marriages in the peak year 1990 to just over 82,000 — including 1500 gay marriages — in 2003. This equals a decline in the marriage rate per 1,000 people from 6.4 at its peak in 1990 (out of a population of under 15 million) to just 5.1 in 2003.

It is, of course, possible that these figures don’t matter to the American debate. Maybe American homosexuals, unlike their Dutch brothers and sisters, are eager to march down the aisle in record numbers. Maybe the American public will respond to the gay-marriage debate not by losing interest in marriage as an institution, but by wholeheartedly recommitting themselves to holy matrimony. And besides, maybe it’s just a coincidence that the birth of the gay-marriage movement in the Netherlands coincided with the start of the decline of the institution of marriage. Maybe — but it would be an awfully big coincidence.

***

Gay Marriage has sent the Netherlands the way of Scandinavia.

Dutch marriage is in trouble. Once noted for their low out-of-wedlock birthrates, and touted by scholars as an alternative to the Scandinavian family model, the Dutch are now experiencing a striking rupture in the relationship between marriage and childbearing, practicing Scandinavian-style parental cohabitation in increasing numbers. The bulk of the change has come in the past seven years — just as Holland adopted registered partnerships, and then full and formal same-sex marriage.

Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrates remained significantly lower than expected in a country with liberal laws and near-universal premarital cohabitation. For all the changes in the Dutch family since the sixties, the Dutch still believed that couples ought to marry before having children.

In the past seven years, however, the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate has been moving up at the strikingly high rate of two-percentage points per year. It needs to be emphasized that it is comparatively rare (although not unheard of) for a Western country’s out-of-wedlock birthrate to sustain a 2-percentage-point-per-year increase for seven consecutive years. Every year the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate continues to rise at a two-percent rate is a surprise. In the ’90s, only two European countries — Finland and Ireland — even approached such a rise (without achieving it). The rapid shift in Holland’s out-of-wedlock birthrate is therefore a significant turning point, and requires explanation.

As we’ve seen, the upswing in the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate coincides with the enactment of registered partnerships and gay marriage. A diligent search for alternative explanations, such as access to contraception and women in the workforce, yields nothing that correlates well with the rise of out-of-wedlock birthrates in the Netherlands. Both opponents and supporters of gay marriage linked the willingness to embrace same-sex marriage with increasing social and legal acceptance of cohabitation rather than marriage for couples with children. Although pinpointing cause and effect raises particular challenges when studying the intricacies of human social life, there are now at least strong indications that Dutch gay marriage has contributed significantly to the decline of Dutch marriage.

Perhaps there is an alternative explanation. But it is up to those who wish to argue that gay marriage has not undermined marriage in the Netherlands to provide a more plausible reason for the last seven years of Dutch marital decline.

Who has the burden of proof here? I would argue that the burden lies with the advocates of radical change to the existing definition of marriage, one that no society we know of has embraced, to show that this kind of social experiment will do no harm.

Given the fact that marriage in both Scandinavia and the Netherlands is in dramatic decline, it is now up to the advocates of same-sex marriage to show why we should believe them when they say that same-sex marriage won’t deeply weaken marriage as a social institution, block efforts to strengthen the connection between marriage and parenting, and commit law and government to the idea that many kinds of alternative family structures deserve the same legal protections as mothers and fathers united in marriage. -Stanley Kurtz

The first legal gay wedding ceremonies in the Netherlands took place on April 1, 2001. By November 2002, however, gay-marriage enthusiasts were forced to admit that interest in this new institution was fading. Since April 2001, each quarter has brought a further decline in the number of gay marriages, falling from 2,500 in 2001 to less than 1,500 last year. As of April 2004, only 5,916 of Hollandâ€™s roughly 55,000 gay couples had tied the knot.

Good Lord! Once the initial wave of marriages was over, the trend has tapered off! It’s the end of the world! Those damn homos just wanted to make ASS upset!

Still without anything of value to add to a conversation, eh rug-idiot? Sad. Hypocritical. What does your facial hair, er wife of 4 years {snicker} have to say about your gross inability to communicate even the simplest original thought?… Of course, to communicate an original thought, you’d actually have to THINK one…

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